Program
Notes and Composer Biographies
March
18 , 2002
The Green Room at the War
Memorial Performing Arts Center
401 Van Ness Avenue, 2nd floor, San Francisco
Steven
Ricks, Piece for Violin and Piano (in three movements)
Terrie
Baune, violin
Marja
Mutru, piano
NOTES:
When I wrote Piece
for Violin and Piano, a work in three movements, I was preoccupied
with the chamber music of Brahms, including an analysis of his music that
employed concepts from Schenkerian Analysis and Schoenberg's theory of
Developing Variation. This piece is my attempt to explore these ideas
in a modern harmonic language and context. The basic motives and ideas
presented in the opening bars of the piece are spun out and transformed
throughout the rest of it. I also seem to have been obsessed with other
aspects of tonal music: Sonata Form in general, and recapitulation in
particular. The three movements refer to and repeat material from each
of the other movements, and have a sort of "interconnected-ness" that
I feel exists between the movements in the Brahms pieces I was studying.
This piece was premiered
in July 1997 by the New York New Music Ensemble at the California State
University Summer Arts Program at Long Beach State, California. It has
undergone some minor revisions since then in preparation for tonight's
performance by Earplay.
BIO:
Steven Ricks (b. 1969)
grew up in Mesa, AZ, where he received his early musical training as a
trombonist. He received a B.M. in music composition from Brigham Young
University, a M.M. in composition from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
and a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Utah. Mr. Ricks received
a 1999 University of Utah Graduate Research Fellowship that allowed him
to complete a year of compositional studies with Sir Harrison Birtwistle
in London, England, where he received the Certificate of Advanced Musical
Studies from King's College London. His awards and commissions include
First Prize in the 1999 SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Competition and
a commission from the Barlow Endowment.
Mr. Ricks has composed
pieces for various solo instruments, chamber ensembles, chamber orchestra,
and choir, and his works have been performed by Speculum Musicae, the
New York New Music Ensemble, the SUNY Purchase Contemporary Ensemble,
and Talujon Percussion Quartet, among others. He is currently a Visiting
Assistant Professor at Brigham Young University where he directs the Electronic
Music Studio, and he is also an Associate Instructor at Westminster College
of Salt Lake City.
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Hans Wener Henze,
San Biagio 9 Agosto ore 1207
Ricahrd Worn, double-bass
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James
Carr, Seven Utopias (Earplay Commission)
I. Bruderhof
II. Iona
III. Ephrata
IV. Roycroft
V. Irenia
VI. Zoar
VII. New Harmony
Tod
Brody, flute
Peter Josheff, clarinet
Terrie Baune, violin
Thalia Moore, cello
NOTES:
The word Utopia was
fashioned by Thomas More from the Greek meaning Òno place.Ó Yet there
have been many utopias. Each movement of my Seven Utopias: Bruderhof,
Iona, Ephrata, Roycroft, Irenia, Zoar,
and New Harmony, bear names borrowed from actual intentional communities,
two of which, Bruderhof and Iona, still exist. These names seem appropriate,
in that each movement was composed using what were for me, radically new
types of harmonic organization. Metaphorically, they are my harmonic utopias.
From the 17th until
the 19th century, daily life in American utopias, whose religious beliefs
or social structures are now dismissed as radical or impractical, actually
differed minimally from surrounding society. Most settlers in New England,
New York, and Pennsylvania were farmers or craftspersons in largely self-sufficient
communities, not now identified as utopian.
For their harmonic
language, my Seven Utopias rely on my understanding of the pioneering
theoretical work done by my teacher, American composer George Perle. George
has discovered a vast and beautiful universe of harmonic relations. This
harmonic system is based on a radical reinterpretation of that most fundamental
of post-tonal objects, the chromatic scale. Unlike the twelve-tone system,
PerleÕs language does not rely on serial ordering of the twelve tones.
Instead, arrays formed
by alignments of four interval cycles in interwoven pairs yield symmetrically
related pairs of notes. The relations between these dyads form a hierarchy
which composer Paul Lansky describes as, Ò...predicated on the idea that
a dyad is located in a series of hierarchically ordered classes. First,
the dyad is a member of an interval classÑand at the same time it is a
member of a sum-class, determined by the mod 12 sum of its 2 pitch-class
numbers. Next, dyads, as sums and intervals, are situated in a multi-dimensional
array of sum and interval cycles. Chords are constructedÉ[and] classified
by the sums and intervals of their component dyads.Ó
While I have endeavored
to understand and use PerleÕs formidable harmonic system, with its 144
keys, 144 modes, and 3 tonalities, my Seven Utopias should not
be used to judge the power and possibilities of GeorgeÕs discoveries,
just as one would not judge diatonic tonality based on the work of a single
composer. Yet I feel certain that, like the real utopias inspiring me,
these Seven ÒharmonicÓ Utopias, while not radically different
from their (musical) surroundings, are formed from ideals which are practical,
powerful, and indeed revolutionary.
BIO:
Composer James Harold
Carr was a pupil of that generation of American composers most deeply
influenced by Schšnberg, Berg, and Webern. His musical language has been
described by Charles Passey of New York Newsday as, Òat turns, strident
and angular, reflective and elegiac, but thoroughly distinct and definitely
of its day.Ó Jim has taught theory, music history, and composition and
at San Francisco State University, Stanford, and Columbia University.
He received his Doctorate from Columbia University in 1992.
CarrÕs Four Aztec
Songs, premiered in Europe at the Festival dÕAix en Provence in 1993,
was given its second European performance last summer in Krakow, Poland
at the ÒMusic in old KrakowÓ festival. In 1998, his trio for clarinet,
violin and piano, Éa reed in the arms of the windÉ, was commissioned
by New YorkÕs Ensemble21 and premiered in New York at Merkin Hall. In
1999, Jim became a Resident Fellow at Stanford University, and in June
2000, his String Quartet, Cenotaph, was premiered at the Roycroft
Chamber Music Festival in East Aurora, New York. Also in 2000, he taught
a summer course at Stanford entitled ÒThe String Quartet: Hearing Voices
of Transparent Fire.Ó Jim is currently translating a 19th century German
counterpoint textbook, and thinking of going hiking.
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David
Schiff, Scenes From Adolescence
Tod
Brody, flute and piccolo
Peter Josheff, clarinet and
bass clarinet
Terrie Baune, violin
Thalia Moore, cello
Marja Mutru, piano
NOTES:
I composed Scenes
from Adolescence in 1987 for a commission from Chamber Music Northwest,
who later recorded the work for Delos. It is a twenty-five minute work
in several continuous sections, most of them very fast. In retrospect
it was a turning point in my style. I wanted to bring my music closer
to jazz and rock, not only to make it more propulsive, but to intensify
its expression and lyricism. Parts of the work are influenced by the styles
of Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane, Bud Powell and Sidney Bechet (in the
one slow section, a clarinet solo), and even Chuck Berry, but I like to
think to think that the biggest overall influence comes from Charles Mingus
who I was fortunate to hear live many times when I was in high school
and college.
Ever since the premiere
in 1987 the piece has become known for its intensity, which is very demanding
on all concerned. After the first performance in Portland a listener told
me that if this was my adolescence it was clear that I had not grown up
in Oregon. True enoughÑlike most of my music, Scenes is very New
York.
BIO:
David Schiff, born
in New York in 1945, is the R.P. Wollenberg Professor of Music at Reed
College in Portland, Oregon. He studied composition with John Corigliano
and Ursula Mamlok at the Manhattan School of Music, and with Elliott Carter
at the Juilliard School. His major works include the opera Gimpel the
Fool, with libretto by I. B. Singer, the Sacred Service, written
for the 125th anniversary of Congregation Beth Israel of Portland, Slow
Dance, commissioned by the Oregon Symphony, Stomp, commissioned
by Marin Alsop for Concordia, and recorded by the Baltimore Symphony conducted
by David Zinman, Solus Rex, for bass trombone and chamber ensemble
commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and premiered
by David Taylor, Speaking in Drums, a concerto for timpani and
string orchestra commissioned by the Minnesota Orchestra for its timpanist,
Peter Kogan, Vashti, a retelling of the Book of Esther for mezzo-soprano,
clarinet and piano, commissioned by the Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival
and 4 Sisters, a concerto for jazz violin and orchestra, which
premiered in Cambridge England in 1997. Recent works include New York
Nocturnes, a piano trio written for Chamber Music Northwest, Pepper
Pieces, arrangements of songs by Jim Pepper for jazz violinist Hollis
Taylor and strings, and Canti di Davide, a concerto for clarinet
and orchestra premiered by David Shifrin and the Virginia Symphony in
October 2001. Three of his compositions, Divertimento from Gimpel
the Fool, Suite from the Sacred Service, and Scenes
from Adolescence, may be heard on Delos CD #3058 performed by artists
of Chamber Music Northwest and the composer's wife Cantor Judith Schiff.
Shtik, written for David Taylor, appears on the album "Past Tells"
on the New World label.
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